Jennifer Beals extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Jennifer Beals
Beals in Sweden, July 1983
Born	December 19, 1963 (1963-12-19) (age 46) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1980–present
Spouse(s)	Alexandre Rockwell (1986-1996) Ken Dixon (1998-present)

Jennifer Beals (born December 19, 1963) is an American film actress and former teen model. She is known for her roles as Alexandra "Alex" Owens in the 1983 film Flashdance, and as Bette Porter on the lesbian-themed Showtime drama series The L Word. She earned an NAACP Image Award and a Golden Globe Award nomination for the former. She has appeared in more than 50 movies.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 3 Personal life 4 Filmography 5 References 6 External links

Early life

Beals was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Jeanne, an elementary school teacher, and Alfred Beals, who owned a grocery store.¹ Her father was African-American and her mother is Irish American.² She has two brothers, Bobby and Gregory.³ Her father died when Beals was ten years old, and her mother remarried, to Edward Cohen. Beals has said her biracial heritage had some impact on her, as she "always lived sort of on the outside", with an idea "of being the other in society".⁴ She graduated from the progressive Francis W. Parker School. During high school she dated actor Adam Baldwin. Beals also was chosen to attend the elite Goodman Theatre Young People's Drama Workshop. Beals attended Yale University, receiving a B.A. in American literature in 1987.⁵ While at Yale, Beals was a resident of Morse College.⁶

Career

Beals had a minor role in the 1980 film My Bodyguard, then came to fame with her starring part in Flashdance. The third-highest grossing U.S. film of 1983, it is the story of 18-year-old Alex, a welder by day and exotic dancer by night, whose dream is to someday be accepted at an illustrious school of dance. Beals was cast for this key role while still a student at Yale. She was nominated for a Golden Globe and the film received an Academy Award for Best Song. After its release, it was revealed that many of Beals's elaborate dance moves were actually performed by double Marine Jahan.⁷

A number of interesting roles came Beals' way following that breakout performance. She and singer-actor Sting were cast as the leads in 1985's The Bride, a gothic horror film loosely based on the 1935 classic Bride of Frankenstein.

Starring opposite Nicolas Cage, the actress portrays a lusty and thirsty vampire who may or may not be a figment of a man's imagination in 1989's Vampire's Kiss.

In 1995, Beals and Denzel Washington co-starred in Devil in a Blue Dress, a period film based on a Walter Mosley novel featuring L.A. private detective, Easy Rawlins. Beals plays a biracial woman passing for white. That same year she appeared with Tim Roth in a segment of the four-story anthology Four Rooms directed by her then-husband, Alexandre Rockwell.

Rockwell had previously directed her in the 1992 independent film In the Soup, which was a Grand Prize winner at the Sundance Film Festival.

Recently, she had a leading role in 2006's The Grudge 2, sequel to the hit horror film of two years earlier.

In television, she made a brief cameo in the final episode of Frasier. In 2007 she appeared in the small TV drama My Name Is Sarah, in which she plays Sarah Winston, a sober woman who joins Alcoholics Anonymous to be with a man she loves.

Beals stars in Showtime Network's The L Word, where she plays Bette Porter, an Ivy League educated lesbian. The series ended in March 2009.

She also appears alongside Tim Roth in Lie To Me, as Cal Lightman's ex-wife, Zoe Landau.

Personal life

Beals was married to Alexandre Rockwell from 1986 to 1996. In 1998, she married Ken Dixon, a Canadian entrepreneur.⁸ She and Dixon had a daughter in October 2005, and Dixon has two children from a previous marriage. Beals has described herself as a "spiritual person".⁹

Beals was a Celebrity Grand Marshall at the 2006 San Francisco Pride Parade.¹⁰

She is good friends with Jennifer Jason Leigh and her Roger Dodger co-star, Elizabeth Berkley.

Filmography

• My Bodyguard (1980)
• Flashdance (1983)
• The Bride (1985)
• Faerie Tale Theatre: Cinderella (1985)
• La Partita, (The Gamble) (1988)
• Split Decisions (1988)
• Vampire's Kiss (1989)
• Sons (1989)
• Dr.M (1990)
• Tinikling ou 'La madonne et le dragon' (The Madonna and the Dragon) (1990) (TV)
• Blood and Concrete (1991)
• In the Soup (1992)
• Terror Stalks the Class Reunion (1992)
• Indecency (1992)
• 2000 Malibu Road (1992)
• Grand pardon II, Le (Day of Atonement) (1992)
• Caro diario (1993)
• The Princess and the Cobbler (1993) (Voice)
• The Night Owl (1993)
• Dead on Sight (1994)
• Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994)
• The Search for One-eye Jimmy (1994)
• Four Rooms (1995)
• Let It Be Me (1995)
• Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)
• The Thief and the Cobbler (1995) (Miramax version)
• Wishful Thinking (1997)
• The Twilight of the Golds (1997)
• The Outer Limits (1997)
• Body and Soul (1998)
• The Prophecy II (1998)
• Nothing Sacred (1998)
• The Spree (1998)
• The Last Days of Disco (1998)
• The Hunger (1999) (TV)
• Something More (1999)
• Fear of Flying (1999)
• Without Malice (2000) (TV)
• A House Divided (2000) (TV)
• Militia (2000)
• The Big House (2001) (TV)
• Out of Line (2001)
• The Anniversary Party (2001)
• After the Storm (2001) (TV)
• The Feast of All Saints (2001) (TV)
• 13 Moons (2002)
• Roger Dodger (2002)
• They Shoot Divas, Don't They? (2002) (TV)
• Runaway Jury (2003)
• Catch That Kid (2004)
• The L Word (2004-2009)
• Frasier (2004)
• Break a Leg (2005)
• Desolation Sound (2005)
• The Grudge 2 (2006)
• Troubled Waters (2006)
• Law & Order (2007) (TV)
• My Name Is Sarah (2007) (TV)
• Queen to Play (Joueuse) (2009)
• Lie to Me (2009) (TV)¹¹
• The Book of Eli (2010)

References

External links

• Jennifer Beals at the Internet Movie Database
• Jennifer Beals at Allmovie
• Bette Porter L-word Wiki